Ab56 v2 aka Ash

I admit I didn't play any of the Super Paper Mario games. I did read somewhere that Bowser has tried to marry Peach, and I thought it was in that game. I'm not sure which game it was in, but if that happened, the rest of my post is still completely on point. Since for some weird reason you seem to be really fixated on which Mario games I've played, here's the list as far as I can remember off the top of my head: Super Mario Bros Super Mario Bros 2 Super Mario Bros 3 Super Mario World Super Mario Land Super Mario Land 2 Super Mario RPG Super Mario 64 Super Mario Sunshine New Super Mario Bros. Mario & Luigi Mario & Luigi 2 Mario & Luigi 3 (I don't remember if I finished this one but I think there were aliens, or it was the one where you're in Bowser. I might have them jumbled up.) Super Mario Galaxy Super Mario Galaxy 2 I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of all of these games because I've played a lot of them many years ago, and I don't have time to replay them now. Please let it go now.

Being unclear about what a fictional character's internal motivations are is not mutually exclusive from inferring that the character's actions themselves create problematic results. Regardless, in some games like Super Paper Mario, Bowser does try to force Peach into a marriage. One might reasonably infer that this is his motivation in other games.

As with Bleck, I'm not sure what point you are making here either. It would really help me understand what you guys are saying if you'd put in more effort than one line. I did play Super Mario RPG, a game which was more the exception than the norm since it was developed by Square rather than Nintendo. It started out with Mario saving Peach from Bowser, though I don't remember his motivation for kidnapping her in that game. Peach was made into a damsel in distress again later in the game, and that was pretty unimpressive. Another flaw is that Peach was a typical support/healer type rather than anything else. The rest of the game was nice in that it wasn't solely focused on Peach being the damsel. Instead, she got to be an active participant in getting her castle back from the Smithy gang. It has good and bad in it.

I've played just about every main franchise Mario game except Yoshi's Island and the last couple NSMB games. Sometimes Bowser's motivation seems to be domination. Other times he wants to marry Peach. It's not especially clear from playing the game why he does what he does. Either way, they could do without the kidnapping.

That guy seems to make no actual points about her arguments in this video. It's just a critique of her masters thesis and her other videos. For the most part, he just makes personal attacks against her and attacks abridged misrepresentations of her arguments while showing that he sort of completely missed her point.

Make a substantive point and maybe I'll answer you.

I think I mentioned it before, but IMO the best way to tweak Mario would be to slightly change Bowser's motivation. Just have his goal switch from kidnapping the princess to wanting to take over the kingdom. Bam. Now Peach can avoid kidnapping and it makes perfect sense for her to be a playable character who can defend her own kingdom. It would really do a world of good if the more modern games would take a page from Mario 2 and give you multiple possible characters to play as against a common foe.

She will probably address that a lot more in the following upcoming episodes: The Fighting F#@k Toy - Video #2 The Sexy Villainess - Video #4 Mrs. Male Character - Video #8 Man with Boobs - Video #10 This video looked like it was meant to be more of a basic introduction to people who aren't really primed to see sexism yet.

This thread could really do with a lot fewer tone arguments and personal attacks. God of War is one game that may or may not be interpreted as problematic. I think the points made about it have been exhausted. Maybe you should agree to disagree about that specific example and move on to discuss the more general topic.

Samus sort of always had this problem, but it's just been exacerbated in more recent games. The player is rewarded for beating the game with 100% completion or in minimal time by seeing scantily clad images of her. Now she's been portrayed with the skin tight outfit and high heels. I also didn't play Other M and like to pretend didn't happen.

Fair enough. I suggest we move on from discussing her delivery at this point, because that topic would be better put to her Facebook page where she might see the comments.

There's little for me to say other than that I completely disagree about limiting the amount of perspectives shared because someone, somewhere will be alienated because they don't believe it's a clear-cut example of sexism. I mean, I guess you could say one example like DiD is not as egregious as another more overt form of sexism, but the less egregious example might reveal more subtle nuances of the issue that the more egregious example does not. Just because the majority of people (if that were even the case) doesn't care about those nuanced points, it doesn't mean those perspectives should be shared any less. There is not a finite amount of discussion that can occur. Ms. Sarkeesian is just one voice talking to a general audience about her perspective. She doesn't represent all feminists everywhere.

It is, at best, a subpar point that really sounds more like concern trolling. There may be perfectly valid reasons for characterizing these games as sexist that other people might disagree with and dismiss. People will always disagree, and that's their prerogative, but that's no reason to say one shouldn't legitimately argue something has sexist undertones if a person think it does.

I think a lot of the sexism comes from the context that a vast majority of video games are one-sided with men saving women who lack deeper characterization. If you had a massive outpouring of games where the opposite were true, or if men were saving men or women were saving women such that you wouldn't notice the classic DiD trope anymore, the trope would lose a lot of its sting. I'm also wary of saying Mario or Zelda are not good examples of sexism because they are still rooted in an historic male fantasy of saving the girl. There are surely more overt examples, but it makes me very uncomfortable to say something to the effect of "well this isn't real sexism/misogyny." I feel even more uncomfortable with saying that when actual women who play games say the games are problematic.

What I said is not a straw man by definition. My calling that straw man argument for what it is isn't misrepresenting the argument as a weaker version of itself for me to attack it. The other person's argument was a strawman because it did not address any argument any person in this thread actually made. It attacked a caricature of more well-reasoned arguments you could find all over the Internet and seemed mostly intended to badmouth feminists for no particular reason. I'd appreciate if you could contribute something actually substantive to the thread.

Your whole post is a giant straw man.

That's an awesome hack. The only thing I could imagine would improve it would be to randomize the gender of who you're saving so as to make it less heteronormative. If only the official developers could get in on this.

I think even Zelda games could be done very well without the Damsel in Distress element. Majora's Mask, for example, didn't have a damsel. You were saving Termina and Skull Kid. I'd call that game just as "core" as any of the rest of the Zelda games. Also, in Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker, Zelda was independent and helpful rather than in distress for a huge stretch of the game. It was pretty cool that Zelda was even helping you in the final battle in Ocarina of Time. If they made a few stylistic tweaks for the end game to keep the archvillain threatening without going with the DiD trope, the games would be just as solid in my eyes. I totally agree with you on having a male or female Link. Traditionalists can have the option of playing as male Link if they want. It would be smart to give people options.

Have you considered that tone is not translated very well through this medium and that maybe you don't need to be as rude as you're being here? I'm not interested in quibbling over this nonsense anymore so I'm going try elevating the quality of this discussion. Let's talk about the substantive issues raised in the video. As far as Damsels in Distress go, I think it is indeed a very big problem that a massive number of video games have historically used this trope. It's a problem because we cannot cite even a close to equally large number of games similar in stature that depict women saving men. It is gradually changing, but it's very fair to acknowledge that this has historically been a problem in gaming and often still is. I think the video raises an interesting issue of whether video game franchises that release new games or remakes every couple years should be retrofitted or updated to excise their socially problematic parts, or somehow fix them to be more inclusive. I actually got into a big debate with a friend of mine (who isn't a misogynist, by the way) about exactly that issue. My friend and I focused on Mario as an example. I argued that developers would preserve everything essential to Mario games by simply reworking a minor plot element in these games. For example, Bowser's motivation could shift from kidnapping the princess to wanting to take over the Mushroom Kingdom. That would make the narrative less problematic from a social standpoint while freeing up Peach to be a playable character too. Although Peach getting kidnapped is a classic part of Mario games, it's not the fundamental reason people love Mario or care to play it. That small change wouldn't take away from the rich and colorful environments in the Mario universe or the platform-heavy gameplay people love Mario games for, so it would be a faithful update to the franchise. Updates to old franchises are desirable because at this point, they are ingrained in gaming culture and aren't going to disappear any time soon. In contrast, my friend argued that this would fundamentally change what Mario is about. He is more in support of leaving franchises like Mario and Zelda alone, and instead creating competing franchises that ultimately would become the new standard. In his view, changing old franchises like this would essentially do to them what SEGA has done to Sonic: the games will forget their roots and become unfaithful to what they really are. For reference, Sonic '06 is the bane of his existence. Nobody ventures to change classics like Charlie Brown because it would ruin it, so nor should we change classic gaming icons. He suggests starting anew. Thoughts? Can games be tweaked to fix their gender issues while remaining faithful to the source material? If so, what factors should developers look at to decide how the games should be revised?

This is only part one of a two-part episode of a twelve-episode series. I don't really think discussing the quality of the video or her personal presentation is doing any good. It would be more fruitful to keep the discussion focused on the issues she's raising, because everything else is really a distraction from this important conversation that ought to be happening in gaming communities.

This: The issue at hand is beyond the realm of the privileged person's personal experience. I agree all of those other things you mentioned are different sorts of privilege that should be considered too.

No one said you're not allowed to speak your mind. You were told to check your privilege, which is not childish. It means someone believed that since you are not in the specific group harmed by the content we're discussing, you should measure your comments accordingly and be more open to listening to those who are claiming harm. That's not the same thing as being told to stop participating in the discussion.

This is a discussion forum, so I assume that if you're going to post something, you're trying to make a point. You were being overly dismissive about a topic that you implied you know little about, so I called you on it. Don't get huffy with me for that. Being a college-educated American doesn't give you the personal experience that would make your opinion more informed. By your reasoning, you would be the right person to talk about advanced theoretical physics even if you had never studied it very deeply.

Male privilege is a thing, and academics who know a lot more about the subject than you or I talk about it seriously. I'm going go out on a limb and ask you to check your privilege.

You're arguing a fallacy. A lot of women playing games doesn't mean that more women wouldn't play games if the medium and its community were less misogynistic. Moreover, a raw number of gamers doesn't really tell anyone much because there might be wide disparities in who plays games in different genres across genders, and what the perceptions of those gamers are. Have you ever cracked open a book on gender studies? I suspect you have not if you think gender roles don't impact society today. The reason you don't think this issue is a big problem is because you're not in the demographic this problem affects, nor the demographic that pays attention to these phenomena because they wants to see their friends, sisters, and daughters feel more accepted and equal in gaming. That's okay. Just don't brush it off because it doesn't affect you.